


Start With Brownies

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Paint The Sky With Stars [46]
Category: Night World - Fandom, Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Alternate Universe - Shapeshifters, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Alternate Universe - Witches, Crossover, F/M, Fusion, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-27
Updated: 2016-08-27
Packaged: 2018-08-11 08:44:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7884448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the comment_fic prompt: "Stargate Atlantis/Night World, Rodney McKay, he's more dangerous than the vampires he associates with."</p>
<p>Delos Redfern isn't sure what to make of Rodney McKay, but he learns quickly that he ought to keep the man happy, and to do so he ought to start with brownies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Start With Brownies

Delos hadn’t worked with humans much until Maggie Neely crashed into his life and into his heart and soul, and now, almost ten years later, he was still unsure of how to act around pure humans. Granted, Rashel Jordan wasn’t technically human, because her fraternal twin sister was a shapeshifter, and she excelled as a hunter with her superior strength, reflexes, and predatory instincts. Apparently this Rodney McKay was technically a witch, through some bizarre scientific means. As far as Delos was concerned, though, both of them were human. Rodney had told a fantastical story about interstellar travel, aliens, and a shapeshifter who could do magic, but Delos wasn’t afraid. He was a Wild Power, a walking nuclear bomb, and nothing frightened him.  
  
Rodney took him and Rashel to meet his contact in the military, who would help get them to where John Sheppard had wreaked havoc by speaking of the Night World.  
  
Colonel Samantha Carter was blonde, beautiful, and competent. Strong, for a human. Not strong enough for a vampire.  
  
“Hear me out,” Rodney began, sliding into the booth.  
  
“For?” Carter raised her eyebrows.  
  
“I need your help. It’s about John.”  
  
“I’m no longer in command.” Carter darted looks at Rashel and Delos, wary.  
  
“I know you talk to Woolsey about what’s going on.”  
  
“What do you want?”  
  
“I have a plan,” he said.  
  
“What kind of plan? The kind that ends up with three-fourths of a solar system blown to hell?” Carter asked.  
  
Rashel looked alarmed. Delos was still a bit fuzzy on the concept of interstellar travel and solar systems but knew that things getting blown to hell in general was bad.  
  
Rodney looked mutinous. “It was five-sixths, but the solar system was uninhabited. This from the woman who blew up a star.”  
  
Delos knew enough about astronomy to know that blowing up a star was terrifying.  
  
“Look, John needs to be convinced that Lorne isn’t the Antichrist. These people can help.”  
  
“These people?” Carter cast Delos and Rashel looks askance.   
  
“Delos Redfern is one of John’s cousins on his mother’s side, and Rashel is, er, human. But supportive of, er, interspecies cooperation,” Rodney said.  
  
“You violated your NDA?” Carter hissed.  
  
“It’s for the good of multiple galaxies! I have it all worked out,” Rodney said. “Delos knows lots of foreign languages, can pose as a translator, and Rashel is...badass. I thought she’d make a good Marine.”  
  
“What do you mean you have it all worked out?” Carter asked.  
  
Rodney handed her a flash drive. “Service jacket for Sergeant Rashel Jordan, CV for Dr. Delos Redfern.”  
  
“You’re not a hacker.” Carter accepted the flash drive slowly, expression skeptical.  
  
“I learned things, out there.” Rodney raised his chin.  
  
“You really think this will fix things?” Carter studied Rodney closely.  
  
“It’s the best shot we have.”  
  
Carter took a deep breath. “Fine. You two, come with me. You,” she said to Rodney, “go buy some souvenirs or something. Pretend you’ve never met them before. Look surprised when I tell you they’re shipping out with you.”   
  
“Thanks, Sam.”  
  
“You owe me, Rodney.”  
  
“I know, Sam.”  
  
“Five sixths of a solar system? Really?”  
  
“You started it, with a star.”  
  
“Well, my star was deliberate.”  
  
“Touche.”  
  
Rodney departed, and Delos and Rashel followed Carter to her car.   
  
She gave them uniforms, and then at the Mountain she had them sign loads and loads of paperwork. She was polite, asked questions, trying to find out how much Rodney had told them. Delos asked questions in return, trying to find out just how much John had told them. Which was, apparently, everything.  
  
“How old are you, really?” Carter asked.  
  
“I was born the same year as Cousin John,” Delos said.  
  
“You don’t look a day over twenty-five.” Carter eyed him.  
  
“In a few years I will probably allow myself to age some more, so people don’t look too closely at my relationship with my soulmate.” Delos shrugged.  
  
Rashel winced. “Quinn looks eighteen and has for the last four-hundred years. It’s awkward sometimes.”  
  
Whatever Rodney had put on that flash drive, combined with Carter’s inherent authority at the SGC, made it so no one questioned Rashel and Delos’s presence on the base. No one questioned their presence in the gate room when it was time to depart, and no one questioned their presence on the spaceship they were beamed up to (just like on Star Trek, and Maggie had always said that wasn’t real).

The other scientists accepted Delos with aplomb, and he took the opportunity to brush up on what languages he knew and practice some of his Ancient. The Marines also accepted Rashel easily, impressed by her strength and speed during sparring sessions.  
  
Everyone else, though, was terrified of Rodney. In small, quiet ways. For three weeks, while the ship sped through space, the other scientists and soldiers gave Rodney a wide berth, the cooks made sure he had special food (like extra brownies), and when he wanted something, it was given to him, no questions asked, no matter how bizarre.  
  
“McKay is intelligent, yes, but not particularly physically formidable,” Delos said to Dr. Jackson one day. He left off mention of McKay accidentally setting young Kurt on fire for now; he didn't know how much Dr. Jackson knew about the Night World. “I do not understand everyone’s fear of him. You are not afraid of him.”  
  
“Well, I remember Rodney before he was the smartest man in two galaxies,” Jackson said. “But being on a gate team has really helped him...relax a little.”  
  
Delos, with his preternatural hearing, could hear Rodney screaming at the other scientists from three decks away. He raised his eyebrows. “Relax?”  
  
Jackson laughed. “Relatively speaking, yes. So...Redfern. Any relationship to the late Amethyst Redfern, John Sheppard’s mother?”  
  
“She was an older cousin,” Delos said.   
  
“Then you’re a…?”  
  
“Lamia. Carter told you?”  
  
“Carter told me everything, so I’d be prepared,” Daniel said. “Besides, after I got zapped by Merlin, now I have the Gene, so theoretically I can do...magic.” He waggled his fingers experimentally.  
  
Delos raised his eyebrows. “Have you tried?”  
  
“Not really, no. Been doing other things. Driving the Ori out of the Milky Way Galaxy, you know the drill.” Jackson’s smile was wry.   
  
“Perhaps you ought to be afraid of McKay,” Delos said. “He set a werewolf on fire.”  
  
“On purpose?”  
  
“Accidentally.”  
  
“Ah, like that uninhabited solar system, then.” Jackson lowered his gaze, then raised it. “Here’s the thing - your kind seems to underestimate our kind a whole lot. In fact, many species who are either numerically or technologically superior or both underestimate us poor little humans a whole lot. And we still win. McKay and I may have the Gene, but at heart, we’re human, and we humans are capable of...anything.”  
  
“Anything?” Delos asked.  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“What’s the worst McKay could do to me?”  
  
“Make sure you never have hot water your entire stay on Atlantis, for one.”  
  
“I was raised in a castle that had no indoor plumbing,” Delos said.  
  
Interest sparked in Jackson’s eyes. “Do tell!”  
  
Delos did, answering Jackson’s questions politely, all the while keeping an ear out for Rodney, who was pretending not to know him or Rashel. While Delos was good at passing as a human, he liked to remind himself that he was a lamia, and a Redfern to boot, but none of the Marines seemed fazed when Delos turned his darkest look on them.  
  
An angry glance from Rodney, however, reduced an entire room of scientists to tears.  
  
When they beamed down to Atlantis, Woolsey, John, and Major Teldy were there to greet them (Rodney had warned Rashel and Delos it would be so).  
  
Jackon smiled at Teldy and Woolsey. “Hey, Richard, Anne. So good to see you.”  
  
“Welcome to Atlantis, Dr. Jackson, Dr. Redfern, Sergeant Jordan. And welcome back, Dr. McKay,” Woolsey said.  
  
Delos saw it, the moment John recognized what Delos was. Silver fury flared in his eyes, and energy crackled in the room. Magic. For all that Delos had been raised to think of John Sheppard as a Redfern, he’d forgotten that John was also half Sheppard, half witch.  
  
But then Rodney reached out, placed a hand on John’s arm, and just like that, John relaxed, looked - almost human again. Calm.  
  
And Delos knew, however frail Rodney might be, Rodney was all that stood between John Sheppard and the rest of the universe. John was afraid of Evan Lorne, and Delos understood that fear, but everyone was underestimating John, who was half-witch, half-vampire, John, who was Maya Dragonslayer reborn.  
  
Everyone pretended not to see when Rodney leaned in and kissed John hello, and Delos wondered what he would have to do, to make sure Rodney stayed safe and happy.  
  
He was willing to bet a good place to start would be brownies.


End file.
